My trip to Peru in May 2024 had two full-day bookends in Lima, which gave me plenty of time to explore the historic center. I share the opinion that you can find more impressive ensembles elsewhere. "Ensemble" is the key word here. While there are plenty of eye-catching details, they do not add up to a consistent overall picture. Nor is there a killer must-see feature, as has already been stated.

Plaza de Armas and the San Francisco Convent are the main attractions, and the library at Santo Domingo is as impressive as any old library elsewhere. With good timing and extra effort, you can step inside historic palaces, such as Palacio de Torre Tagle or Casa de Aliaga, which are not without interest. The balconies throughout the historic center are the main visual highlights. The Mestizo Baroque church portal at La Merced rivals that of San Francisco. Plus, there is a Modernist façade or two and plenty of splashes of color everywhere, as is common in colonial architecture.

Unlike some previous reviewers, I encountered the main plaza completely off-limits to vehicular traffic. At noon, there was a changing of the guard at the Presidential palace, which started as a slow and tedious ceremony but eventually broke into a 15-minute routine of military choreography, performed to the medley of popular songs anchored by El Cóndor Pasa (which I never knew was written by a Peruvian composer).

I was advised by a tour guide not to go across the river into the Rimac district with my big camera showing, so Puente de Piedra and Parque de Muralla were the northern limit of my walks. But I covered quite a lot of ground between the river and the southern boundary of the core area. In retrospect, just a couple of hours centered on the main plaza and nearby San Francisco, plus a stop at Plaza San Martín (mainly due to its homogeneous architectural makeup) should be enough to get a feel for the overall site; the rest comprises no more than ten percent of the value.